Je suis Donald? Et tu, Europa? PB
------
From Politico.com:
Trump fits many perceived European stereotypes of America: excess, vulgarity, ignorance, superficiality, love of wealth, to name a few.
“Trump represents the America that we love to hate,” said Marie-Cécile Naves, a sociologist and author of “Le nouveau visage des droites américaines” (“The New Face of the American Right”).
“He is our negative mirror image, a man we see as brutal, who worships money and lacks culture — someone who lets us feel a bit superior about being European...”
In France, editorialist Alexandre Vatimbella called him a “provocative clown” whose brand of populism was dangerous for democracy, while Germany’s newspapers have reached a consensus around the label “Großmaul,” or loudmouth.
A YouGov poll this week showed that two-thirds of Germans had a negative view of him.
And the commentary written about Trump in Europe’s newspapers, from Paris to London to Berlin, is almost uniformly disparaging.
One source of irate fascination is Trump’s bombastic, frequently insulting verbal style.
While European politicians are not immune to controversial outbursts (Berlusconi once drew criticism for describing Barack Obama as “tanned”), few compare with the ad hominem vehemence of Trump, who called TV host Rosie O’Donnell a “fat pig” and said that a lot of Mexican immigrants were “rapists and criminals.”
If Trump had said such things in France, where free speech is constrained by laws of propriety, he could have faced prosecution for proffering public insults or inciting racial hatred. Which makes his outbursts, no matter how offensive, more newsworthy here.
At times Trump has deliberately sought attention in Europe, using his favorite tools: Twitter and provocation.
In January, after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist shootings in France that killed 12, Trump tweeted that the victims might have survived if only they had been carrying guns.
The comment triggered a volley of insulting replies on Twitter (“gros con!” — “moron”), but it also put Trump on the French media radar.
In Germany, where there is great suspicion for the very wealthy, much attention is paid to Trump’s money.
The left-leaning Tageszeitung newspaper described him as the “incarnation of the ugly American,” while the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung focused on Trump’s penchant for insult, comparing him in a profile last Sunday to Dieter Bohlen, a German singer who has been criticized for saying mean things about participants on a TV talent show (“You sing like a garden gnome on ecstasy,” etc.).
Most coverage of Trump in Europe deals with him as if he were an alien phenomenon from Planet America.
But as his poll numbers keep rising, Europeans have also started to think how Trump-ism applies in their countries, giving rise to an array of Trump-is-just-like-our-X comparisons...
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Link: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/trump-europe-213141
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Upsurge in Uncertain Work
From Robert Reich at the HuffingtonPost.com:
------
As Labor Day looms, more Americans than ever don't know how much they'll be earning next week or even tomorrow.
This varied group includes independent contractors, temporary workers, the self-employed, part-timers, freelancers, and free agents. Most file 1099s rather than W2s, for tax purposes.
On demand and on call -- in the "share" economy, the "gig" economy, or, more prosaically, the "irregular" economy -- the result is the same: no predictable earnings or hours.
It's the biggest change in the American workforce in over a century, and it's happening at lightening speed.
It's estimated that in five years over 40 percent of the American labor force will have uncertain work; in a decade, most of us.
Increasingly, businesses need only a relatively small pool of "talent" anchored in the enterprise -- innovators and strategists responsible for the firm's unique competitive strength.
Everyone else is becoming fungible [Definition: dictionary.com: being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or replaceable, in whole or in part, for another of like nature or kind.], sought only for their reliability and low cost.
Complex algorithms can now determine who's needed to do what and when, and then measure the quality of what's produced.
Reliability can be measured in experience ratings. Software can seamlessly handle all transactions -- contracts, billing, payments, taxes.
All this allows businesses to be highly nimble -- immediately responsive to changes in consumer preferences, overall demand, and technologies.
While shifting all the risks of such changes to workers...
Even giant corporations are devolving into spot-auction networks. Amazon's algorithms evaluate and pay workers for exactly what they contribute.
Apple directly employs fewer than 10 percent of the 1 million workers who design, make and sell iMacs and iPhones...
------
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-upsurge-in-uncertain-_b_8036690.html?
------
As Labor Day looms, more Americans than ever don't know how much they'll be earning next week or even tomorrow.
This varied group includes independent contractors, temporary workers, the self-employed, part-timers, freelancers, and free agents. Most file 1099s rather than W2s, for tax purposes.
On demand and on call -- in the "share" economy, the "gig" economy, or, more prosaically, the "irregular" economy -- the result is the same: no predictable earnings or hours.
It's the biggest change in the American workforce in over a century, and it's happening at lightening speed.
It's estimated that in five years over 40 percent of the American labor force will have uncertain work; in a decade, most of us.
Increasingly, businesses need only a relatively small pool of "talent" anchored in the enterprise -- innovators and strategists responsible for the firm's unique competitive strength.
Everyone else is becoming fungible [Definition: dictionary.com: being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or replaceable, in whole or in part, for another of like nature or kind.], sought only for their reliability and low cost.
Complex algorithms can now determine who's needed to do what and when, and then measure the quality of what's produced.
Reliability can be measured in experience ratings. Software can seamlessly handle all transactions -- contracts, billing, payments, taxes.
All this allows businesses to be highly nimble -- immediately responsive to changes in consumer preferences, overall demand, and technologies.
While shifting all the risks of such changes to workers...
Even giant corporations are devolving into spot-auction networks. Amazon's algorithms evaluate and pay workers for exactly what they contribute.
Apple directly employs fewer than 10 percent of the 1 million workers who design, make and sell iMacs and iPhones...
------
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-upsurge-in-uncertain-_b_8036690.html?
Walmart Suffers Shrinkage
Shrinkage? That's a problem, but there are more basic problems at Walmart.
Any casual shopper of Walmart, who pays any kind of attention, understands that the stores are poorly run.
Go through a Walmart store and play a game of Where's the Manager? Good luck scoring points.
There is a low level of customer service in Walmart stores. I shop there.
The other week I began to ask a Walmart employee where an item was in the store and she answered, with pride, she is on her break right now.
I couldn't tell she was on break. Think about that. The first part of good training is that your breaks never begin when customers are in your presence.
Walmart has many good workers. But support for the good workers is complicated because managers are few and not readily available. Plus, bad workers crowd out the effect of good workers.
Why did Walmart raise the minimum wage? Instead, they could have raised the wages of the better, longer term employees.
Reward virtuous behavior and point out to the newer employees that the path to higher wages is improved performance on the job.
Why did Walmart follow the advice of progressive, liberal Democrat complainers?
Walmart should listen to their customers and improve the basic shopping experience.
Study what Kroger is doing.
Their management led, customer focused change has been apparent for quite a while. I experience an improvement in customer service from Kroger employees. Not all. But it has been obvious. PB
------
From Bloomberg.com:
Walmart has a shrinkage problem, and it's not the Seinfeld variety.
It's the kind that, in retail industry jargon, refers to stealing and losing stock to damage or poor inventory management.
In explaining a fairly dismal quarterly result on Tuesday morning, the massive retailer called out shrinkage again and again.
In the press release, it was mentioned three times. In the conference call, it came up 13 times.
That's a lot of shrinkage.
Walmart sales, in fact, were pretty decent, but expenses weighed on the company’s profit.
Part of those expenses entailed writedowns for inventory that just disappeared.
Store employees say they have seen everything from customers stealing meat in their pants to thieves bursting out a back door with a shopping cart full of electronics to be loaded into a waiting car.
What’s more, Walmart's chief financial officer, Charles Holley, said he expects the problem to persist.
Walmart is restarting a program to teach employees how to spot thieves, be they coworkers or would-be consumers.
Meanwhile, it is auditing its entire supply chain to "close gaps" while it adds staff to parts of stores in which items tend to vanish.
Many stores now station an employee at the exit to check customers' receipts...
How big of a problem is shrinkage?
For the typical vendor, it amounts to about 1.4 percent of sales, according to a 2014 survey by the National Retail Federation.
About 38 percent of that is caused by shoplifting, an additional 35 percent via theft by employees, and the rest reflects damaged goods, cashier errors, and other administrative slip-ups.
Walmart hasn’t said how much stuff is being nicked, but at that rate, it would be losing roughly $7 billion a year to thieves. In short, the return on any kind of shrinkage-prevention program is probably pretty good...
------
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-18/wal-mart-is-getting-hit-hard-by-thieves
Any casual shopper of Walmart, who pays any kind of attention, understands that the stores are poorly run.
Go through a Walmart store and play a game of Where's the Manager? Good luck scoring points.
There is a low level of customer service in Walmart stores. I shop there.
The other week I began to ask a Walmart employee where an item was in the store and she answered, with pride, she is on her break right now.
I couldn't tell she was on break. Think about that. The first part of good training is that your breaks never begin when customers are in your presence.
Walmart has many good workers. But support for the good workers is complicated because managers are few and not readily available. Plus, bad workers crowd out the effect of good workers.
Why did Walmart raise the minimum wage? Instead, they could have raised the wages of the better, longer term employees.
Reward virtuous behavior and point out to the newer employees that the path to higher wages is improved performance on the job.
Why did Walmart follow the advice of progressive, liberal Democrat complainers?
Walmart should listen to their customers and improve the basic shopping experience.
Study what Kroger is doing.
Their management led, customer focused change has been apparent for quite a while. I experience an improvement in customer service from Kroger employees. Not all. But it has been obvious. PB
------
From Bloomberg.com:
Walmart has a shrinkage problem, and it's not the Seinfeld variety.
It's the kind that, in retail industry jargon, refers to stealing and losing stock to damage or poor inventory management.
In explaining a fairly dismal quarterly result on Tuesday morning, the massive retailer called out shrinkage again and again.
In the press release, it was mentioned three times. In the conference call, it came up 13 times.
That's a lot of shrinkage.
Walmart sales, in fact, were pretty decent, but expenses weighed on the company’s profit.
Part of those expenses entailed writedowns for inventory that just disappeared.
Store employees say they have seen everything from customers stealing meat in their pants to thieves bursting out a back door with a shopping cart full of electronics to be loaded into a waiting car.
What’s more, Walmart's chief financial officer, Charles Holley, said he expects the problem to persist.
Walmart is restarting a program to teach employees how to spot thieves, be they coworkers or would-be consumers.
Meanwhile, it is auditing its entire supply chain to "close gaps" while it adds staff to parts of stores in which items tend to vanish.
Many stores now station an employee at the exit to check customers' receipts...
How big of a problem is shrinkage?
For the typical vendor, it amounts to about 1.4 percent of sales, according to a 2014 survey by the National Retail Federation.
About 38 percent of that is caused by shoplifting, an additional 35 percent via theft by employees, and the rest reflects damaged goods, cashier errors, and other administrative slip-ups.
Walmart hasn’t said how much stuff is being nicked, but at that rate, it would be losing roughly $7 billion a year to thieves. In short, the return on any kind of shrinkage-prevention program is probably pretty good...
------
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-18/wal-mart-is-getting-hit-hard-by-thieves
Monday, August 24, 2015
Stocks Smashed When Morning Comeback Flops
From Investors.com:
Stocks were smashed again Monday after a morning comeback attempt lost steam and the Dow Jones industrial average was 588 points lower when the dust cleared.
Volume was substantially higher on the NYSE exchanges, according to preliminary data in the stock market today.
If the numbers hold up, it will be the fourth straight day of rising downside volume.
The S&P 500 ended down 3.9% and the Nasdaq lost 3.8%.
The Dow fell 3.6%. At their lowest levels of the day, the Dow was off 6.6%, the S&P 500 5.4% and the Nasdaq 8.8%.
The sell-off followed the Shanghai composite, which dropped 8.5% overnight and sent global markets reeling.
Oil settled down 5.5% at $38.24 a barrel.
The dollar was weaker. The euro was stronger.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell below 2% during the day.
Fed funds futures rose, signaling a growing perception that the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates in September...
------
Link: http://news.investors.com/investing-stock-market-today/082415-767902-stock-market-today-smashed-dow-down.htm?ref=HPMStory
Stocks were smashed again Monday after a morning comeback attempt lost steam and the Dow Jones industrial average was 588 points lower when the dust cleared.
Volume was substantially higher on the NYSE exchanges, according to preliminary data in the stock market today.
If the numbers hold up, it will be the fourth straight day of rising downside volume.
The S&P 500 ended down 3.9% and the Nasdaq lost 3.8%.
The Dow fell 3.6%. At their lowest levels of the day, the Dow was off 6.6%, the S&P 500 5.4% and the Nasdaq 8.8%.
The sell-off followed the Shanghai composite, which dropped 8.5% overnight and sent global markets reeling.
Oil settled down 5.5% at $38.24 a barrel.
The dollar was weaker. The euro was stronger.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell below 2% during the day.
Fed funds futures rose, signaling a growing perception that the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates in September...
------
Link: http://news.investors.com/investing-stock-market-today/082415-767902-stock-market-today-smashed-dow-down.htm?ref=HPMStory
Global Stocks Fall Further
From the New York Times online:
Global stocks on Monday picked up where they left off last week, with markets falling sharply in Europe and Asia, led by another big sell-off in China.
Investors’ concerns over China’s economic slowdown and a souring view of emerging economies have rattled financial markets around the world in recent days, and showed no signs of letting up.
In China, the benchmark Shanghai composite index closed 8.5 percent lower, erasing all of the gains it had made in an extraordinary run-up this year.
And in Europe, stocks fell sharply, with the main indexes down by 4 percent or more in the early afternoon...
------
From the Wall Street Journal online:
The rout in financial markets intensified Monday, as global stocks and commodities extended last week’s steep declines.
European stocks and U.S. stock futures dived after a sharp sell off in Chinese shares accelerated, wiping out gains for the year.
Oil prices continued to drop, while Treasuries gained as investors sought the relative safety of government bonds...
------
Links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/business/dealbook/stocks-in-asia-fall-as-china-and-emerging-economies-lose-favor.html
http://www.wsj.com/articles/global-stocks-set-for-heavy-losses-1440399044
Global stocks on Monday picked up where they left off last week, with markets falling sharply in Europe and Asia, led by another big sell-off in China.
Investors’ concerns over China’s economic slowdown and a souring view of emerging economies have rattled financial markets around the world in recent days, and showed no signs of letting up.
In China, the benchmark Shanghai composite index closed 8.5 percent lower, erasing all of the gains it had made in an extraordinary run-up this year.
And in Europe, stocks fell sharply, with the main indexes down by 4 percent or more in the early afternoon...
------
From the Wall Street Journal online:
The rout in financial markets intensified Monday, as global stocks and commodities extended last week’s steep declines.
European stocks and U.S. stock futures dived after a sharp sell off in Chinese shares accelerated, wiping out gains for the year.
Oil prices continued to drop, while Treasuries gained as investors sought the relative safety of government bonds...
------
Links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/business/dealbook/stocks-in-asia-fall-as-china-and-emerging-economies-lose-favor.html
http://www.wsj.com/articles/global-stocks-set-for-heavy-losses-1440399044
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Immigration Chaos at the Borders - in Europe
A look at the chaos happening with immigrants at national borders - human misery shows up far, far away from the United States. PB
------
From Reuters.com:
Thousands of rain-soaked migrants stormed across Macedonia’s border on Saturday as police lobbed stun grenades and beat them with batons, struggling to enforce a decree to stem their flow through the Balkans to western Europe.
Security forces managed to contain hundreds in no-man’s land. But several thousand others – many of them Syrian refugees - tore through muddy fields to Macedonian territory after days spent in the open without access to shelter, food or water.
"In this Europe, animals are sleeping in beds and we sleep in the rain," said 23-year-old Syrian woman Fatima Hamido after running across the border.
"I was freezing for four days in the rain, with nothing to eat."
Macedonia on Thursday declared a state of emergency and ordered its borders sealed to migrants, many of them refugees from war who have been entering from Greece at a rate of 2,000 per day en route to Hungary and Europe’s borderless Schengen zone.
On Friday, riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades to drive back angry crowds, in the latest flare-up in a migration crisis that has brought ripples from the conflicts of the Middle East to Europe’s shores.
Calling out the army, Macedonia said it would ration access, and allowed some 600 through overnight; they squeezed onto a dawn train north to the Serbian border.
But far more have since arrived on the Greek side, converging on a filthy, chaotic strip of frontier with little sign of an organized aid effort.
Some industrious Greeks sold sandwiches and drinks to those prepared to pay.
A man with a generator charged 1.5 euros to charge mobile phones...
------
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/22/us-europe-migrants-macedonia-idUSKCN0QR06320150822
------
From euobservor.com:
The number of detections in 2015 (January-July) now totals nearly 340,000, compared to 123,500 recorded in the same period of last year.
At least 2,300 people have also died this year while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, research by The International Organisation for Migration says.
The surge has created huge pressure on border control authorities...
Mediterranean Sea shores are the entry point to Europe for most migrants, but not the end destination.
Germany is to raise its forecast for the number of asylum seekers expected this year from a previous 450,000 to at least 650 000, German daily Handelsblatt reported on Tuesday.
Interior minister Thomas de Maiziere, who is scheduled to present a new prognosis by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees on Wednesday, will say that the number of asylum seekers coming to Germany in 2015 could go as high as 750,000...
------
Link: https://euobserver.com/social/129918
------
From Reuters.com:
Chaos at Macedonia border as refugees tear through police lines
Thousands of rain-soaked migrants stormed across Macedonia’s border on Saturday as police lobbed stun grenades and beat them with batons, struggling to enforce a decree to stem their flow through the Balkans to western Europe.
Security forces managed to contain hundreds in no-man’s land. But several thousand others – many of them Syrian refugees - tore through muddy fields to Macedonian territory after days spent in the open without access to shelter, food or water.
"In this Europe, animals are sleeping in beds and we sleep in the rain," said 23-year-old Syrian woman Fatima Hamido after running across the border.
"I was freezing for four days in the rain, with nothing to eat."
Macedonia on Thursday declared a state of emergency and ordered its borders sealed to migrants, many of them refugees from war who have been entering from Greece at a rate of 2,000 per day en route to Hungary and Europe’s borderless Schengen zone.
On Friday, riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades to drive back angry crowds, in the latest flare-up in a migration crisis that has brought ripples from the conflicts of the Middle East to Europe’s shores.
Calling out the army, Macedonia said it would ration access, and allowed some 600 through overnight; they squeezed onto a dawn train north to the Serbian border.
But far more have since arrived on the Greek side, converging on a filthy, chaotic strip of frontier with little sign of an organized aid effort.
Some industrious Greeks sold sandwiches and drinks to those prepared to pay.
A man with a generator charged 1.5 euros to charge mobile phones...
------
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/22/us-europe-migrants-macedonia-idUSKCN0QR06320150822
------
From euobservor.com:
Record 107,500 migrants arrived in EU in July
The number of detections in 2015 (January-July) now totals nearly 340,000, compared to 123,500 recorded in the same period of last year.
At least 2,300 people have also died this year while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, research by The International Organisation for Migration says.
The surge has created huge pressure on border control authorities...
Mediterranean Sea shores are the entry point to Europe for most migrants, but not the end destination.
Germany is to raise its forecast for the number of asylum seekers expected this year from a previous 450,000 to at least 650 000, German daily Handelsblatt reported on Tuesday.
Interior minister Thomas de Maiziere, who is scheduled to present a new prognosis by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees on Wednesday, will say that the number of asylum seekers coming to Germany in 2015 could go as high as 750,000...
------
Link: https://euobserver.com/social/129918
Friday, August 21, 2015
Liberals and their "Anchor Emails"
Maybe we should call this: "Birth of the Anchor Email."
It seems that indignation on the political campaign is infused with the old adage that you when you point one finger out, three fingers point back.
A particular candidate, who has been acting like a typical lying liberal, dissembles about her Liberal White Email Privilege while casting blame and shame on The Other about the phrase, 'Anchor Baby.'
Well....it seems there are such things as Anchor Emails.
How will blame and shame be tossed about now?
By the way, does "Anchor Baby"sound like a title to a soul song about sailors? Or maybe a psalm about being protected in safe harbors?
Finally, after reading the last paragraph below, does "Life of an Email" being at get-go?
What would Francis the Pope say? There is a Star to guide us! PB
------
From Reuters.com:
For months, the U.S. State Department has stood behind its former boss Hillary Clinton as she has repeatedly said she did not send or receive classified information on her unsecured, private email account, a practice the government forbids.
While the department is now stamping a few dozen of the publicly released emails as "Classified," it stresses this is not evidence of rule-breaking.
Those stamps are new, it says, and do not mean the information was classified when Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2016 presidential election, first sent or received it.
But the details included in those "Classified" stamps — which include a string of dates, letters and numbers describing the nature of the classification — appear to undermine this account, a Reuters examination of the emails and the relevant regulations has found.
The new stamps indicate that some of Clinton's emails from her time as the nation's most senior diplomat are filled with a type of information the U.S. government and the department's own regulations automatically deems classified from the get-go — regardless of whether it is already marked that way or not...
------
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/21/us-usa-election-clinton-emails-idUSKCN0QQ0BW20150821
It seems that indignation on the political campaign is infused with the old adage that you when you point one finger out, three fingers point back.
A particular candidate, who has been acting like a typical lying liberal, dissembles about her Liberal White Email Privilege while casting blame and shame on The Other about the phrase, 'Anchor Baby.'
Well....it seems there are such things as Anchor Emails.
How will blame and shame be tossed about now?
By the way, does "Anchor Baby"sound like a title to a soul song about sailors? Or maybe a psalm about being protected in safe harbors?
Finally, after reading the last paragraph below, does "Life of an Email" being at get-go?
What would Francis the Pope say? There is a Star to guide us! PB
------
From Reuters.com:
For months, the U.S. State Department has stood behind its former boss Hillary Clinton as she has repeatedly said she did not send or receive classified information on her unsecured, private email account, a practice the government forbids.
While the department is now stamping a few dozen of the publicly released emails as "Classified," it stresses this is not evidence of rule-breaking.
Those stamps are new, it says, and do not mean the information was classified when Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2016 presidential election, first sent or received it.
But the details included in those "Classified" stamps — which include a string of dates, letters and numbers describing the nature of the classification — appear to undermine this account, a Reuters examination of the emails and the relevant regulations has found.
The new stamps indicate that some of Clinton's emails from her time as the nation's most senior diplomat are filled with a type of information the U.S. government and the department's own regulations automatically deems classified from the get-go — regardless of whether it is already marked that way or not...
------
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/21/us-usa-election-clinton-emails-idUSKCN0QQ0BW20150821
Sunday, August 16, 2015
These are the Good Old Days
From economist Mark J. Perry at AEI.org:
The significant reduction in the cost of purchasing and operating common household appliances like room air conditioners help us understand that the “good old days” are now!
And it’s not just air conditioners that have gotten cheaper over time.
The chart below shows that household spending on “life’s basics” – food, clothing and shelter – has steadily declined over time as a share of after-tax personal income, from more than 50% in the 1930s and 1940s, to more than 40% for most of the 1970s when it took more than a week of work to buy the air conditioner featured above, to only about 32% in recent years.
The gradual increase in our standard of living thanks to the falling prices (measured in both inflation-adjusted dollars and in the “time cost”) of appliances, food, clothing, cars and household appliances is an under-appreciated and under-reported benefit of the “miracle and magic of the marketplace.”
And it’s not just air conditioners that have gotten cheaper over time.
The chart below shows that household spending on “life’s basics” – food, clothing and shelter – has steadily declined over time as a share of after-tax personal income, from more than 50% in the 1930s and 1940s, to more than 40% for most of the 1970s when it took more than a week of work to buy the air conditioner featured above, to only about 32% in recent years.
The gradual increase in our standard of living thanks to the falling prices (measured in both inflation-adjusted dollars and in the “time cost”) of appliances, food, clothing, cars and household appliances is an under-appreciated and under-reported benefit of the “miracle and magic of the marketplace.”
------
Link: http://www.aei.org/publication/the-good-old-days-are-now-home-appliances-today-are-cheaper-and-more-energy-efficient-than-ever-before/
Friday, August 14, 2015
The 10% Treasury Matures Tomorrow
When yields were double digits - 10% and above - savers thought they were investors. That perception and understanding was commonly held back in the 1980's.
10% on a U.S. Treasury bond was a terrific return that savers confidently received without the fear of risk assumed if stocks were purchased instead.
Today is different. 30 year treasury bonds yield about 3%. Wow! Where did that 7% additional return go? Ask our government 'leaders' and those nice people at the Federal Reserve: what have you done for me lately?
Our economy and our markets have punished both savers and income investors. The educated guess is that at some point interest rates will move up.
If so, if rates move noticeably up, how far up will long rates move? And if so, how quickly?
Will we ever see 10% again?
What is important to remember is that 30 years ago, investors did not trust long bonds at 9% or 10% because they could get similar rates at shorter maturities.
That was the most important lesson I ever learned in the industry. PB
------
From Bloomberg.com:
The last Treasury bond with a coupon above 10 percent is older than some government-debt traders.
It turns 30 tomorrow.
The bond was issued on Aug. 15, 1985, and is one of just five Treasury bonds left with coupons of 9 percent or higher.
All of them mature in the next three years.
And as the ranks of high-coupon government bonds have gotten smaller, so has the number of traders and analysts who were on Wall Street desks when high yields and worries about rising prices were the norm.
“Talking to people who have been in the market for 20 or 30 years is interesting, because they did see double-digit inflation,” says Edward Acton, a U.S. government-bond strategist at RBS Securities, who turned 23 two months ago.
“It seems almost alien...”
The newest 30-year Treasury note sold by the U.S. government has a coupon of 2.875 percent. Those ultra-low yields and regulatory pressure have crimped profitability for large global banks.
And that has pushed banks toward hiring the younger cadre of bond traders, a trend that consulting-firm Greenwich Associates calls “juniorization.”
“You’ve got a whole bunch of people who weren’t even alive in ’85 and haven’t known anything but yields going down,” says Neil Bouhan, an interest-rate strategist with BMO Capital Markets in Chicago.
Bouhan was 5 years old when the bond was issued.
------
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-14/the-10-treasury-that-s-older-than-a-lot-of-traders-matures-tomorrow
10% on a U.S. Treasury bond was a terrific return that savers confidently received without the fear of risk assumed if stocks were purchased instead.
Today is different. 30 year treasury bonds yield about 3%. Wow! Where did that 7% additional return go? Ask our government 'leaders' and those nice people at the Federal Reserve: what have you done for me lately?
Our economy and our markets have punished both savers and income investors. The educated guess is that at some point interest rates will move up.
If so, if rates move noticeably up, how far up will long rates move? And if so, how quickly?
Will we ever see 10% again?
What is important to remember is that 30 years ago, investors did not trust long bonds at 9% or 10% because they could get similar rates at shorter maturities.
That was the most important lesson I ever learned in the industry. PB
------
From Bloomberg.com:
The last Treasury bond with a coupon above 10 percent is older than some government-debt traders.
It turns 30 tomorrow.
The bond was issued on Aug. 15, 1985, and is one of just five Treasury bonds left with coupons of 9 percent or higher.
All of them mature in the next three years.
And as the ranks of high-coupon government bonds have gotten smaller, so has the number of traders and analysts who were on Wall Street desks when high yields and worries about rising prices were the norm.
“Talking to people who have been in the market for 20 or 30 years is interesting, because they did see double-digit inflation,” says Edward Acton, a U.S. government-bond strategist at RBS Securities, who turned 23 two months ago.
“It seems almost alien...”
The newest 30-year Treasury note sold by the U.S. government has a coupon of 2.875 percent. Those ultra-low yields and regulatory pressure have crimped profitability for large global banks.
And that has pushed banks toward hiring the younger cadre of bond traders, a trend that consulting-firm Greenwich Associates calls “juniorization.”
“You’ve got a whole bunch of people who weren’t even alive in ’85 and haven’t known anything but yields going down,” says Neil Bouhan, an interest-rate strategist with BMO Capital Markets in Chicago.
Bouhan was 5 years old when the bond was issued.
------
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-14/the-10-treasury-that-s-older-than-a-lot-of-traders-matures-tomorrow
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Why all the news on the Black Bill C.? But not the same amount of news on the White Bill C.?
From Yahoo News a few hours ago:
3 New Bill Cosby Accusers Reveal Explicit Details of Alleged Assaults
----
Link: https://www.yahoo.com/tv/s/3-bill-cosby-accusers-reveal-explicit-details-alleged-212354191.html
From the NY Post six months ago:
Just a few weeks ago, reports broke that Bill Clinton had flown at least 11 times on “The Lolita Express” — a private plane owned by the mysterious financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
According to Virginia Roberts, who claims to have been one of Epstein’s many teenage sex slaves, Clinton also visited Epstein’s private Caribbean retreat, known as “Orgy Island...”
----
Link: http://nypost.com/2015/02/14/bill-clintons-libido-threatens-to-derail-hillary-again/
Monday, August 10, 2015
Carly Fiorina: Income Inequality Is Worse Under Progressive Policies
From Fox News via Real Clear Politics:
CHRIS WALLACE: So when Hillary Clinton says, "Yeah, and the rich are going to make out like bandits."
CARLY FIORINA: What I would point out to Hillary Clinton is that every single one of the policies that she is currently pursuing makes income inequality worse.
Exhibit A: income inequality under the Obama administration.
Exhibit B: every liberal state in this nation. I spent twelve years in the state of California, a state that's been ruled by liberals for a long time.
And guess what you have: about a hundred and thirty billionaires--good for them--the highest poverty rates in the nation, the exodus of the middle class, the destruction of industry after industry after industry.
Income inequality is worse under progressive policies, because progressive policies favor the wealthy, the well-connected, and the powerful...
------
Link: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/09/caly_fiorina_income_inequality_i_worse_under_progressive_policies.html
CHRIS WALLACE: So when Hillary Clinton says, "Yeah, and the rich are going to make out like bandits."
CARLY FIORINA: What I would point out to Hillary Clinton is that every single one of the policies that she is currently pursuing makes income inequality worse.
Exhibit A: income inequality under the Obama administration.
Exhibit B: every liberal state in this nation. I spent twelve years in the state of California, a state that's been ruled by liberals for a long time.
And guess what you have: about a hundred and thirty billionaires--good for them--the highest poverty rates in the nation, the exodus of the middle class, the destruction of industry after industry after industry.
Income inequality is worse under progressive policies, because progressive policies favor the wealthy, the well-connected, and the powerful...
------
Link: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/09/caly_fiorina_income_inequality_i_worse_under_progressive_policies.html
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Jobs: Hole in the Middle
The New York Times notices what millions of Americans have known for years and years.
The liberal-progressive Obama economy is hostile to the Middle Class.
Just consider this: why have Billionaires flourished in the Obama economy?
And why should millions of average Americans, clinging to honorable middle class hopes and dreams, continue to pay the price?
Shame on the progressive frauds. It is phony progressive policies that attack the middle class.
The most difficult truth to accept is that progressive politics is the poison that afflicts middle class Americans. PB
------
From the New York Times online:
The economy created 215,000 jobs, in line with average job creation so far this year.
The growth in July was centered in retail, restaurants and other low-paying service jobs, though there was also encouraging growth in higher-paying fields, including construction and finance.
What was lacking — in July, as in every other month in the past several years — was any appreciable growth in wages.
Average hourly earnings for all private-sector employees rose by 0.5 cents, to $24.99.
Take away the minority of employees who are bosses, and the increase was just 0.3 cents, to $21.01 an hour, or $42,000 a year for a full-time job.
Over all, the average annualized growth rate for wages over the past three months comes to 1.9 percent, barely outpacing inflation.
Job growth without pay raises is a discouraging sign of slack in the job market.
For example, the share of the population age 25 to 54 that is working is stuck at recession-era levels and, worse, has stopped improving in the past five months.
That suggests a dearth of job opportunities for a pool of potential workers that is larger than indicated by the relatively low unemployment rate of 5.3 percent...
------
Link: http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/the-hole-in-the-middle-of-the-jobs-report/
The liberal-progressive Obama economy is hostile to the Middle Class.
Just consider this: why have Billionaires flourished in the Obama economy?
And why should millions of average Americans, clinging to honorable middle class hopes and dreams, continue to pay the price?
Shame on the progressive frauds. It is phony progressive policies that attack the middle class.
The most difficult truth to accept is that progressive politics is the poison that afflicts middle class Americans. PB
------
From the New York Times online:
The economy created 215,000 jobs, in line with average job creation so far this year.
The growth in July was centered in retail, restaurants and other low-paying service jobs, though there was also encouraging growth in higher-paying fields, including construction and finance.
What was lacking — in July, as in every other month in the past several years — was any appreciable growth in wages.
Average hourly earnings for all private-sector employees rose by 0.5 cents, to $24.99.
Take away the minority of employees who are bosses, and the increase was just 0.3 cents, to $21.01 an hour, or $42,000 a year for a full-time job.
Over all, the average annualized growth rate for wages over the past three months comes to 1.9 percent, barely outpacing inflation.
Job growth without pay raises is a discouraging sign of slack in the job market.
For example, the share of the population age 25 to 54 that is working is stuck at recession-era levels and, worse, has stopped improving in the past five months.
That suggests a dearth of job opportunities for a pool of potential workers that is larger than indicated by the relatively low unemployment rate of 5.3 percent...
------
Link: http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/the-hole-in-the-middle-of-the-jobs-report/
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Inequality: Bill and Hillary Clintons' Speaking Fees Dwarf Average Worker Pay
Ahh, the champions of the middle class: the Clintons.
I feel sorry for them. After all, last year Hillary Clinton said, "We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt."
Dead broke.
The travails of being public servants can sometimes just wear you down. Even when you're the former First Family of the United States.
Indeed, especially when the First Family also had been Co-Chief Executives of the United States, as in Bill's claim that America was getting "two for the price of one" when he and Hillary were elected as a team of equals.
Millions of average Americans who cling to the hope of maintaining their middle class position, but suffer from continued economic uncertainty, might be sympathetic to Hillary's claim.
We find out, however, that inequality of income afflicts people in different ways. In the case of the Clintons, inequality has a different dimension than what most Americans understand. PB
------
From Investors.com:
The AFL-CIO publishes an annual report called Executive PayWatch.
According to the most recent report, in 2014 the average pay for a CEO at a Standard & Poor's 500 company was $13.5 million.
At the same time, average take-home pay of nonsupervisory workers was $36,134.
So on average, per the AFL-CIO, CEO earnings were 373 times greater than worker income.
Anyone can email companies and the Securities and Exchange Commission through the AFL-CIO website to express their outrage at this presumed unfairness.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton's newly released tax returns show that she and Bill earned $139.1 million between 2007 and 2014, an average of $17.4 million per year.
In 2014, the power couple earned $20 million in speaker fees — 553 times that aforementioned average worker salary, 50% greater than the CEO ratio...
------
Link: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/080415-765021-big-pay-gap-between-clintons-speaking-fees-and-average-worker-income.htm?
I feel sorry for them. After all, last year Hillary Clinton said, "We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt."
Dead broke.
The travails of being public servants can sometimes just wear you down. Even when you're the former First Family of the United States.
Indeed, especially when the First Family also had been Co-Chief Executives of the United States, as in Bill's claim that America was getting "two for the price of one" when he and Hillary were elected as a team of equals.
Millions of average Americans who cling to the hope of maintaining their middle class position, but suffer from continued economic uncertainty, might be sympathetic to Hillary's claim.
We find out, however, that inequality of income afflicts people in different ways. In the case of the Clintons, inequality has a different dimension than what most Americans understand. PB
------
From Investors.com:
The AFL-CIO publishes an annual report called Executive PayWatch.
According to the most recent report, in 2014 the average pay for a CEO at a Standard & Poor's 500 company was $13.5 million.
At the same time, average take-home pay of nonsupervisory workers was $36,134.
So on average, per the AFL-CIO, CEO earnings were 373 times greater than worker income.
Anyone can email companies and the Securities and Exchange Commission through the AFL-CIO website to express their outrage at this presumed unfairness.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton's newly released tax returns show that she and Bill earned $139.1 million between 2007 and 2014, an average of $17.4 million per year.
In 2014, the power couple earned $20 million in speaker fees — 553 times that aforementioned average worker salary, 50% greater than the CEO ratio...
------
Link: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/080415-765021-big-pay-gap-between-clintons-speaking-fees-and-average-worker-income.htm?
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
WSJ: Oil Companies’ Spending Cuts - Will Cuts Be Enough?
Low oil prices are having a big effect on the major players. How much pain will there be if companies consolidate? And will gas prices drop to $2 or below? PB
------
From the Wall Street Journal online:
The world’s biggest oil companies have vowed to bring down the costs of big projects in the face of slumping oil prices, but the unrelenting price weakness—with crude below $50 a barrel—suggests they could have to dig deeper still...
Focusing on lower-cost projects with higher returns will help to some extent, but companies are also relying on cost deflation for everything from drill rigs to pipelines, improved efficiency and increased standardization to help manage the lower price environment.
“They are bringing down their costs both operationally and also in terms of capex, but it’s probably not going to be enough,” said Roberto Cominotto, investment manager at Swiss investor GAM, highlighting the need for a structural shift in the way big oil companies operate after years of diminishing returns as production costs crept higher...
...the current weak prices illustrates the risk that the market could remain under pressure for longer than anticipated, driving prolonged pain and the need for more stringent action among Shell and BP in Europe and American giants such as Chevron and Exxon Mobil Corp.
Their focus remains on driving down capital expenditure and continuing to reduce costs, the benefits of which oil companies say could begin to show through by the end of this year.
In the U.S., energy producers have proven more resilient than expected, finding ways to lower drilling costs even as they have reworked hedge programs and issued equity to bolster their balance sheets.
But pressure is mounting...
What the industry really needs is a shakeout, said David Tameron, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. Too many energy companies, particularly in the bottom tier, have been able to hang on through the downturn with the help of financial backers.
“You need that wash out,” Mr. Tameron said. “You need some producers to go away.”
The prospect of tougher cuts down the line is a sign that the severity of the situation is dawning on the industry...
“Although they’re still not willing to abandon their rosy forecasts, at least they are addressing the near term situation that we have to do something now and not wait for oil prices to recover,” Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit said of the major oil companies.
He said it won’t be easy.
“It’s a monumental challenge to offset the impact of a 50% drop in oil price,” said Mr. Gheit.
“The priorities have shifted completely. The priority now is to discontinue budget spending. The priority is to live within your means. Forget about growth. They are now in survival mode.”
------
Link: http://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-companies-spending-cuts-unlikely-to-be-enough-1438720142
------
From the Wall Street Journal online:
The world’s biggest oil companies have vowed to bring down the costs of big projects in the face of slumping oil prices, but the unrelenting price weakness—with crude below $50 a barrel—suggests they could have to dig deeper still...
Focusing on lower-cost projects with higher returns will help to some extent, but companies are also relying on cost deflation for everything from drill rigs to pipelines, improved efficiency and increased standardization to help manage the lower price environment.
“They are bringing down their costs both operationally and also in terms of capex, but it’s probably not going to be enough,” said Roberto Cominotto, investment manager at Swiss investor GAM, highlighting the need for a structural shift in the way big oil companies operate after years of diminishing returns as production costs crept higher...
...the current weak prices illustrates the risk that the market could remain under pressure for longer than anticipated, driving prolonged pain and the need for more stringent action among Shell and BP in Europe and American giants such as Chevron and Exxon Mobil Corp.
Their focus remains on driving down capital expenditure and continuing to reduce costs, the benefits of which oil companies say could begin to show through by the end of this year.
In the U.S., energy producers have proven more resilient than expected, finding ways to lower drilling costs even as they have reworked hedge programs and issued equity to bolster their balance sheets.
But pressure is mounting...
What the industry really needs is a shakeout, said David Tameron, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. Too many energy companies, particularly in the bottom tier, have been able to hang on through the downturn with the help of financial backers.
“You need that wash out,” Mr. Tameron said. “You need some producers to go away.”
The prospect of tougher cuts down the line is a sign that the severity of the situation is dawning on the industry...
“Although they’re still not willing to abandon their rosy forecasts, at least they are addressing the near term situation that we have to do something now and not wait for oil prices to recover,” Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit said of the major oil companies.
He said it won’t be easy.
“It’s a monumental challenge to offset the impact of a 50% drop in oil price,” said Mr. Gheit.
“The priorities have shifted completely. The priority now is to discontinue budget spending. The priority is to live within your means. Forget about growth. They are now in survival mode.”
------
Link: http://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-companies-spending-cuts-unlikely-to-be-enough-1438720142
Monday, August 3, 2015
Go, Cars. Go!
Go, Cars. Go! PB
----From Forbes online:
GM, Fiat Chrysler, Ford: July Sales Up
U.S auto sales blew past expectations in July, the nation’s automakers said on Monday, helped by continued demand for trucks and SUVs.
The big three — Fiat Chrysler, Ford and General Motors — all reported sales figures that trounced analyst expectations and marked their best July since before the recession.
Automakers are currently benefiting from the winning combination of an improving economy, lower gas prices and easy credit.
They’ve also been running deals to draw buyers onto the car lot and have seen increasing demand for trucks and SUVs, which have a higher margin...
------
Link:http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurengensler/2015/08/03/u-s-auto-sales-july/
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